1. There was, in the first place, the development to its full extent of a unique species of composition, the pure prophetic, which soon occupied the most important position among the various kinds of literature. The older prophets, it is true, had certainly taken an active part in many ways in the reduction, for instance, of laws and histories to a written form. But the recording of purely prophetic utterances, ideas, and hopes, is a very remote branch of composition, and is not rendered possible until general literature has attained a considerable facility of expression; and, again, it is only produced under the pressure of exceptional circumstances. These causes were now at hand. In the great prophets of these centuries was concentrated not only the most spiritual but actually the strongest of the powers which directed the course of events; and when, in the contest with the power of the throne, as well as with the general development of religion, its sway over the present gradually declined, prophetism, in so many respects rejuvenated, turned with the greater ardour to the future, from which it hoped to receive the confirmation of those of its truths which were not recognised in the present. It was, on the one hand, the grand public activity of the prophets in the kingdom of their day, and, on the other, the appeal which was rendered necessary to a more extended publicity and to the decision of the future, which became the most powerful lever of pure prophetic composition; nor can the public state life of the Greeks and Romans have stimulated their popular orators to a more rich and stirring composition than was poured forth with heavenly clearness by the prophets through the medium of literature and art, under the impulse of the afflictions to which the spirit of Jahveh was subjected by the world. Prophetic composition had indeed been begun in earlier ages; but its true glory and lasting significance were certainly not attained until the rejuvenescence and supreme development of prophetism itself."

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The origin of this branch of literature placed it in that happy mean between the experiences of a life devoted to the public welfare, and the ardent efforts for a better future, which alone, in the sphere of religion, can give birth to a pure and powerful influence. Without having laboured in public for a considerable time, and thus acquired a position of authority, no prophet ever attempted to extend his influence by writing also. The presence of this powerful restraint is readily perceived on a careful perusal of the words, as forcible as they are sound, of those pro

phets. But when he had sufficiently proved his prophetic character by word of mouth, and was impelled by some need of his age to put forth his influence by writing over a larger area and a longer period, he collected in an orderly form the most lasting truths of his fugitive addresses, added perhaps much new matter which there had been little opportunity for treating orally with so much definiteness and detail, yet which ought not to be omitted in any composition claiming the attention of a wider circle as well as a more permanent existence, or which, referring to his own time, pressed hard for admission. In such a work, accordingly, a definite survey would always be expected, of all the future and of the mode in which the darkness of the present would be dissipated; the composition itself invited the further prosecution of such free surveys beyond the manifold perplexities of the present. Almost every considerable work thus contained a survey of the general condition of the world, and the future destiny even of many foreign nations; to take a truthful view of this kind belonged quite naturally to the religion of Jahveh: and besides, the more influential prophets were really often consulted' by ambassadors from foreign nations, or by native kings on matters of foreign policy, just as in later times some of the Greek oracles acquired a wide-spread fame. The design and beautiful execution of every prophetic composition rendered it a work of art in the best sense of the term; and it is scarcely possible to say how much noble art is to be found in the pure prophetic compositions of this period, when they are only properly understood and thoughtfully regarded. The fresh wants of his age may have impelled the same prophet to have recourse to writing a second or a third time; and in this way to reissue his earlier work, altered and enlarged.3

It is very remarkable that this species of literary composition, with its style vibrating between poetry and prose, advanced as early as Joel to a high degree of cultivation and perfection ;

This custom begins with Amos i. sq., and appears quite developed in Isaiah, as well as later in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and even in so small a book as that of Zephaniah.

See the cases of Elisha and Jonah, pp. 86, 93, 128. Allusions to this practice are found in Is. xxi. 11 sq., xviii. 2 sqq., xxx. 1 sqq., and instances in Is. xxxvii. 2 sqq., xxxix. 3 sqq., as well as from a later age in Jer. xxvii. 2 sqq.

This is most clearly shown later on in the more perfectly preserved books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But a similar re

sult may be gained from the fragments of Isaiah; among them we find-1) ii.—v., ix. 7-x. 4, portions of a very early work; from a subsequent one there have been preserved-2) vi.-ix. 6, xvii. 1-11; there followed-3) a work of which we now possess i., xiv. 28–xvi., xxi. 11–17, and which may have included the previous compositions; 4) from a subsequent one again we have xxii. (with xxiii. as appendix); 5) from one immediately after xxviii.—xxxii., xx.; 6) from another x. 5-12, xiv. 24-27, xvii. 12-xviii. (xxxiii.); until, 7) xix. must have been written later still.

although this prophet' appeared about a century and a half before Isaiah, and belongs to the earlier period of prophecy. Moreover, Joel was certainly not the first prophet distinguished for such composition, but he was in early times the highest model of it, so that his successors all followed his elevated precedent, absolutely, so far as concerned the beauty of his expression, and his ideas to a very large extent. Next in order comes Amos, who wrote in homely but expressive language the little book, the whole of which has been preserved to us. He was followed by Hosea; the most pensive, and at the same time the most creative of all the prophets, whose present book we can scarcely suppose to contain all the compositions of his troubled life. Further, at the time of Isaiah, and not wholly independent of his spirit, appears the prophet, unknown to us by name, strangely clear and yet obscure in language, whose utterances are to be read at the close of the present book of Zechariah.3 All these are surpassed alike in prophetic activity and in literary manysidedness, art, and power, by the sublime Isaiah, of whose works a tolerably large series of pieces of the most varied description has been preserved; by him, finally, is ranged in the ranks of prophetic authorship the homely Micah, whose little book has come down to us perfect. Yet all these prophetwriters were only a few out of a much larger number; of whose compositions nothing has been preserved but a few widely scattered and hardly recognisable fragments."

2. Nor do these decades witness any decline from the previous century in the stream of songs. They are as powerful, their vigour and freshness almost as inexhaustible, as ever; and even princes like Hezekiah still held it compatible with their dignity to enjoy, like David, the delight and honour of poetic composition. Essentially, however, the song, like every other kind of poetry, is more and more devoted to interpreting freely the prophetic thoughts which at this time exercised so powerful a sway over everything. There are no songs which take a deeper hold, none which spring from a profounder beauty of spirit, than those which burst from the glorious prophets in the midst of the terrible struggles of their life, and in which their souls, bowed by the resistance of the world, regain their strength in their God alone. Inspired by this prophetic spirit, even the song of those who were not prophets receives a new vitality. And whenever, during this period, the joy of the

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$ P. 132.

1 P. 138 sq. 2 P. 128. For this see, for instance, p. 144 note 8; the whole subject is discussed more fully in the Propheten des A. B. i.

lvii.

Pss. lxii., xxxix.; similarly, Pss. lvi.,

• Cf. Ps. xii., and supra, p. 147 note 3.

whole nation or their jubilee in victory is glorified in song, it is upborne by the lofty truths which, issuing from the lips of the great prophets, were now endeavouring more and more to penetrate the whole people.'

Side by side with this ran the continual advance of the art of poetry proper; which shows itself in the most varied forms. In many songs and other pieces, poetic expression now becomes, apparently with artistic design, more impassioned and picturesque; it ventures oftener on strange and surprising effects.* It would seem as though an extraordinary variety of ancient and much-admired poems had ever floated before the mind of these composers; so that they were led to place their art in new modes of portrayal, and in the excitement of surprise by unusual turns. In fact, there are numerous signs which warrant the conclusion that there had long existed an eagerness for the careful collection of the ancient productions of poetic art. If king Hezekiah had a fresh collection made by competent persons of the Solomonic proverbs,3 it is likely that several collections would have been already made of the most beautiful songs, a branch of literature for the most part much older. Moreover, the Sépher Hajjashar was probably compiled, as has been observed, under Solomon; and there are clear traces of other collections of Solomon's time; and Hezekiah is therefore still less likely to have been behindhand in gathering together the finest songs. The age may have been satiated with the repeated collection and perusal of these ancient songs; and this would account for the new style of artistic expression of which many poets were now fond. Another novelty was the charm of the echo in single stanzas (strophes), an artificial method of construction which is now exhibited for the first time by many songs, as well as by some prophetic compositions; and which in later songs became still more popular.

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The poetic proverb, the Solomonic origin of which has been already explained, becomes in like manner more quaint and artificial in expression; in other respects, however, it breaks with growing sense of freedom through its ancient fetters, spreads out its idea through a long series of verses, and gradually changes into an engaging portrayal of good or bad morals."

LYRIC, DRAMATIC, AND HISTORICAL COMPOSITION.

199

Nor was the highest species of poetry, the drama, allowed to rest after the commencement which has been already described,' as the brilliant example of the book of Job proves. This work, composed at the conclusion of this or the opening of the following period, states with the most dramatic effect one of the profoundest, and at that time one of the most novel of truths, in all its vitality; and hence reveals the highest capabilities of the poetic art of the ancient people. In actual representation the drama appears to have derived its materials partly from ancient history at great national festivals, partly also from humble life. Nothing, however, is harder than to exhibit the pure truths of an elevated religion in the drama, i.e. in the game of life, with dignity; and besides this, the ancient religion of Israel shrunk profoundly from every realistic attempt to represent the Divine in visible shape, and consequently from the living personification and exhibition of the drama. Availing itself, however, of ordinary speech, alike in poetry and in prophetic portrayal, the aspiring spirit was now casting off its ancient fetters, and learning with the greatest freedom to trace out striking pictures of everything Divine. And thus the poet of the book of Job ventures to design a divine-human drama; not to be actually performed, and seen by the sensible eye; but to be witnessed by the eye of the mind only, and represented in the imagination and the spirit of the true religion enables him to execute this utmost venture of human fancy with such life, and at the same time such dignity, that it supplies us also with an eternal model. But just as Plato would never have written his dramatic dialogues had he not been first a dramatic poet, so a poem like Job could never have been produced in Israel, had there not long before been successful efforts for the composition and performance of the real drama.

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3. The art of historical composition was also strongly affected by the two great powers which, as has been explained, became predominant in speech and literature, namely, the growing freedom with which the poetic art was developed, and the elevation of the noblest prophetic truths. Its province was certainly divided with increasing distinctness into that of primitive times, and that of the immediately preceding centuries; and it was further and further removed from the spirit of antiquity. But whichever it is engaged in describing, it acts more and more as the interpreter of the same prophetic truths, and by this means renews in the most striking way the recollection of ages long gone by. But the power which had marked the development

1 P. 42 sq.